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Attentional control may be modifiable with Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy to Prevent Suicide
Megan S Chesin1, John G Keilp2, Anna Kline3
1Department of Psychology, William Paterson University, USA.
Objective:
To test whether Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy to Prevent Suicide (MBCT-S) is associated with improvement in attentional control, an objective marker of suicide attempt.
Method:
In the context of a randomized clinical trial targeting suicide risk in Veterans, computerized Stroop and emotion Stroop (E-Stroop) tasks were administered 3 times over 6-months follow-up to 135 high suicide risk Veterans. Seventy were randomized to receive MBCT-S in addition to enhanced treatment as usual (eTAU), and 65 were randomized to eTAU only. E-Stroop word types included positively- and negatively-valenced emotion, suicide, and combat-related words. Interference scores and mixed effects linear regression analyses were used.
Results:
Veterans receiving MBCT-S showed a more favorable trajectory of attentional control over time, as indicated by performance on two E-Stroop tasks. Combat-stress interference scores improved over time among Veterans in MBCT-S. Interference processing time for negative affective words deteriorated over time among Veterans receiving eTAU only.
Conclusions:
MBCT-S may effectively target attentional control, and in particular reduce processing time during affective interference, in high suicide risk Veterans. Future studies to replicate these findings are warranted.
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